Centuries' witness Madam Chiang dies, aged 105

Chiang Kai-shek's widow, who helped her husband to rule China, and later Taiwan, during years of war, upheaval and cold war tension, has died at home in New York. She was 105.

After battling cancer and other illnesses for years, Madam Chiang, also known as Soong Meiling, was healthy until Wednesday when she developed pneumonia symptoms, her relative, Chiang Fang Chihyi, said in Taipei.

Wiping away tears, she told a news conference that Madam Chiang died "very peacefully" on Thursday at her home in Manhattan, where she had spent much of her time in semi-seclusion since the death of Chiang Kai-shek in 1975.

The Chiangs were once one of the most famous couples in the world. The Time magazine publisher Henry Luce named them the Man and Woman of the Year in 1938.

Chiang's Nationalist party government ruled China during the second world war when the Japanese occupied much of the country. Fluent in English, Madam Chiang served as an envoy for her husband, successfully persuading the US Congress to help China to fight the Japanese.

Yesterday, Taiwanese television stations replayed grainy, black and white footage of Madam Chiang speaking to the Congress. "I can also assure you that China is eager and ready to cooperate with you and other peoples to lay a true and lasting foundation for a sane and progressive world society," she said.

Washington answered her call. But there was less sympathy when she returned after the war to ask for help in the civil war against the communists. The corrupt Nationalists squandered large amounts of aid and America lost faith in them.

The Nationalists lost the war in 1949 and retreated to Taiwan, 100 miles off China's coast.

President Chiang ruled Taiwan with an iron grip, jailing dissidents and opposing the democratic reforms which eventually came after his death.

Although her last visit to Taiwan was in 1995, Madam Chiang - known as the "eternal first lady" - stirred strong feelings in many Taiwanese.

Her detractors called her an evil empress who had helped to prop up her husband's corrupt, repressive Nationalist party government.

Mark Hwang, 39, a motorcycle salesman in Taipei, said: "She was part of an era I don't want to remember. Taiwan was not a democracy then."

But her admirers praised her intelligence, energy, patriotism and determination to fight communism.

Yesterday, the Nationalist party described her as a woman "beloved by the people of Taiwan, who bridged the turbulence of three centuries".

She was born into a wealthy family on February 12 1898, on the southern Chinese island of Hainan and was educated in the US. Her father, Charles Soong, was a Christian missionary. She was a Methodist and converted her husband to Methodism after marrying him in 1927.

But the marriage was full of friction, in part because of Chiang's infidelities. The couple had no children.

After her husband's death, her influence in Taiwan faded as the island became a democracy.AP